Newburgh police consider PistolCam

Tuesday

Oct 30, 2007 at 2:00 AM

City of Newburgh — In a city where the street version of events is often worlds apart from the police version, a new technology might help bridge the gap. Yesterday, city officials showed off the PistolCam, a lightweight, pager-sized digital camera that attaches to an officer's gun barrel and automatically begins recording as soon as the officer draws his weapon.

John Doherty

City of Newburgh — In a city where the street version of events is often worlds apart from the police version, a new technology might help bridge the gap.

Yesterday, city officials showed off the PistolCam, a lightweight, pager-sized digital camera that attaches to an officer's gun barrel and automatically begins recording as soon as the officer draws his weapon.

Newburgh is looking to become the first police force in the country to use the new cameras, and police and city officials hope it can help cool relations between police and residents. Tensions here have been raised by several high-profile incidents, including a shoot-out between city police and 23-year-old Antonio Bryant, which left Bryant dead in the middle of Broadway last year.

"The interaction between police and residents is a top priority," said Mayor Nick Valentine. "We think you can do a lot with technology."

Newburgh is still months away from issuing its officers the cameras, and would be the first department in the nation to use them, said the manufacturer. But a $35,000 pilot training program has already been funded by the state Senate, and could have members of the Orange County Sheriff's Office's SWAT team trying out the cameras in the coming months.

"They would train on it first and then the city would get them," said state Sen. Bill Larkin, R-C-Cornwall-on-Hudson. "We're looking for the governor to release the money (for Newburgh's program)."

Talks about getting the specialized weapons came after the Bryant shooting and have been months in the works. Last week, civil rights attorney Michael Sussman issued a report detailing suggestions for improved police-community relations. Sussman's report called for dashboard cameras in every police squad car, and came after a series of public meetings on police brutality sponsored by his Democratic Alliance, the local NAACP and Newburgh's Black Ministerial Fellowship.

Police Chief Eric Paolilli said he supported cameras as a way to resolve complaints against officers. But he has suggested shoulder-mounted mini-cameras that would go with officers on foot chases and on the thousands of calls each year that take police from their cars. Paolilli has included a request for shoulder-cameras in his 2008 budget.

Terry Gordon, the inventor of the PistolCam and the founder of Legend Technologies, said his device works best in conjunction with other types of cameras — not in place of them. You don't want police pulling their weapon solely as way of videotaping a heated incident, Gordon said. The PistolCam is a great training aid, he said, and a way of judging whether an officer's use of his gun was justified — after the event.

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